In the aftermath of a gun tragedy, there isn’t anything wrong with proponents of gun control trying to persuade Americans to change their position in light of what happened. But after Newtown, many gun-control advocates tried to shame rather than persuade, as if the “correct” position was obvious to everyone save retrograde idiots.
On guns, that strategy has never worked.
How often has it ever worked on anything, basic psychology being what it is? Eh, whatever. Convincing people to change their minds was never the goal anyway. The sorts of snarky social media performances he’s talking about are entirely for the benefit of the performer’s peer group. Proud gun owners in this case might as well be pantomime villains or pro wrestling heels; they only exist to make the hero look better. Which brings us to the main point I wanted to make: Friedersdorf, like a lot of people who spend their professional lives online, seems to be making the mistake of treating the effluvium in his Twitter feed as representative of anything other than the useless chattering class that produces it. Some people recognize that true sociopolitical activism, especially for unpopular causes, requires patience, tact and a massive amount of exhausting, thankless, anonymous work, to say nothing of time spent actually engaging with people who disagree. Other people, well, they write anguished blog posts bitching at Madonna and maybe retweet some snark about gun owners and their sexual inadequacy. The latter aren’t “advocates” of anything but their own righteousness; they aren’t interested in anything but the usual insular status-seeking.
March 29, 2014 @ 6:54 pm
Good points Damian.
The internet brings out the Six Sigma extremists who don't represent any viewpoint other than their own.
Additionally, moving peoples views takes time and patient thankless hard work as you write.
March 29, 2014 @ 11:45 pm
Good post. Even if I, as true with many of us, have to admit that we are guilty of this.
March 31, 2014 @ 2:16 am
I'm sure a more sympathetic observer could say that people are just venting or goofing around with their friends online, that it's not intended to actually convince anyone of anything. Even so, it just seems too often that the twitosphere is nothing but ranting and venting, and it really gets boring and tiresome to read. I especially notice this when I'm too busy to read much for a few days — it gets harder and harder to get back into the swing of things, because I'm just overcome by a sense of how utterly useless so much of it is.